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Tricky Inference Question.

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Tricky Inference Question.

by prashant_Sishodia » Thu Jun 11, 2015 9:50 pm
SwiftCo recently remodeled its offices to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires that certain businesses make their properties accessible to those with disabilities. Contractors built ramps where stairs had been, increased the number of handicapped parking spaces in the parking lot, lowered door knobs and cabinet handles, and installed adaptive computer equipment.

Which of the following is the most likely inference based on the statements above?

(A) SwiftCo is now in compliance with ADA requirements.

(B) SwiftCo has at least one employee or customer who uses a wheelchair.

(C) Prior to the renovation, some doors and cabinets may have been out of reach for some employees.

(D) The costs of renovation were less than what SwiftCo would have been liable for had it been sued for ADA violations.

(E) Businesses without adaptive computer equipment are in violation of the ADA.





The answer to this question is Optoion C, which I think is incorrect. The use of the word " certain businesses" narrows down the domain to those businesses,which either have disabled employees or have disabled clients. Please walk me through this confusion.
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by Ian Stewart » Fri Jun 12, 2015 9:59 am
I agree with you that the "right answer" here is incorrect. We know the company renovated to comply with government regulations. We have no basis to conclude anything at all about the company's employees -- in fact, we don't even know the company has any employees. It's a logical error to draw any conclusion about company employees from this passage, and if this were a real GMAT CR question, any answer about the needs of employees would be a trap answer.

Because the question made no sense, I read solutions posted elsewhere, including the original solution. Those solutions justify answer C by pointing out that it must be true: "Prior to the renovation, some doors and cabinets may have been out of reach for some employees." And yes, that is true, because it says nothing. Maybe some doors were out of reach, and maybe not - that covers every possibility, so no one can argue with that. But that doesn't make C the right answer, because the question doesn't ask us what must be true. It asks us for an inference. That is, it asks us for something we can logically conclude based on the information in the passage. And answer C is true even if the passage contains no information at all, because it just says something "may" be true (but may not). If we had an answer that said "prior to the renovations, some employees may have had brown hair", that is obviously true, but it is not an inference from the information in the passage, and would not be a good answer here either.

The kind of answer I'd be looking for here is something similar to E - if we know the renovations were conducted to comply with the ADA, and those renovations included changes to computer equipment, then we can conclude the ADA requires some businesses to modify their computers, so some businesses without adaptive computer equipment are presumably in violation of the ADA. But that's not precisely what E says, so I don't like any of the answer choices.
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by theCEO » Sat Jun 13, 2015 8:39 am
prashant_Sishodia wrote:
The answer to this question is Optoion C, which I think is incorrect. The use of the word " certain businesses" narrows down the domain to those businesses,which either have disabled employees or have disabled clients. Please walk me through this confusion.
Hint: You are missing something and to cover all basis, your statement should be:

The use of the word " certain businesses" narrows down the domain to those businesses,which either have disabled employees or the potential to have a disabled employee or have disabled clients or the potential to have a disabled client.
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by theCEO » Sat Jun 13, 2015 8:49 am
By process of elimination, I can see why C could be the answer.

SwiftCo recently remodeled its offices to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which requires that certain businesses make their properties accessible to those with disabilities. Contractors built ramps where stairs had been, increased the number of handicapped parking spaces in the parking lot, lowered door knobs and cabinet handles, and installed adaptive computer equipment.

Which of the following is the most likely inference based on the statements above?

(A) SwiftCo is now in compliance with ADA requirements. Wrong. Maybe there are other requirements that the passage didn't mention.

(B) SwiftCo has at least one employee or customer who uses a wheelchair. Wrong. Maybe Swiftco is making the place wheelchair friendly for potential/future customers or potential/future employees

(C) Prior to the renovation, some doors and cabinets may have been out of reach for some employees. Key word is "may".

(D) The costs of renovation were less than what SwiftCo would have been liable for had it been sued for ADA violations. Wrong. Nothing about costs were mentioned in the passage or penalities.

(E) Businesses without adaptive computer equipment are in violation of the ADA. Wrong. The word "businesses" indicate "all businesses". Not all businesses use computer equipment!
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